Mac OS X - npalko/npalko.github.com GitHub Wiki

http://www.ragingmenace.com/software/menumeters/

~$ brew install readline sqlite gdbm —universal ~$ brew install python --universal --framework

##First Impressions

I'm still very new the Mac world, having started out with Windows and picked up the free UN*Xs in high school (FreeBSD,Linux). Here's a few of my first impressions:

  • Installer is dragging one icon on top of another. Hilarious.
  • "Finder Face" looks a bit like a pervert. He's looking at me naked, and he likes it.
  • Modifier Keys: control, option, command. WTF
  • Feel sluggish - seems to be a better way of doing things
  • Folders are ugly - alternating blue/white bands - ugh. Content preview in win7 much nicer
  • Applications that don't behave: MATAB (keeps File bar on its local window) look retarded
  • Chrome works awesome - yes!

##Fixing Annoyances

  • Changing computer name. Go to Systems Preferences | Sharing, (obviously!).
  • Removing Login Background (cheesy space scene) defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow DesktopPicture ''
  • Changing the default application for files is surpassingly unintuitive, as it's easier to change the default for one file only (a worthless feature, in my opinion).
<script src="https://gist.github.com/1291584.js?file=.bash_profile"></script>

##Recommended Software

##Development

A good friend of mine wanted to use his brand-new Mac for development. Here's the OS X 10.7 specific notes I gave to him.

Xcode 4, Player!

Every free/open UNIX has a number of package managers available. For Linux, you can choose between RPM (Redhat), DEB with dpkg and apt (Debian), and for FreeBSD you have the ports collection. For OS X, I much prefer Homebrew after switching over from MacPorts, for a number of reasons

  • Homebrew will download the binary of the package if it's available, where MacPorts will only compile source. This gets really annoying if you just want to use a handful of command line apps instead of having your computer download tarballs and compile all day.
  • I'd run into much more broken dependency lists in MacPorts than Homebrew.
  • Homebrew stays out of your way in /usr/local/
  • It's really easy to make our own "Formulas" (Homebrew packages)

Make sure you brew install pkg-config! A lot of these packages in brew have a silent dependency on pkg-config, and it only manifests itself as a compiler error, mostly in the case of not being able to find external libraries.

Setting up Python takes a few extra steps, as OS X already has Python installed. As recommended by the instructions, it's best to leave the system's Python alone, and set up an additional Python installation to hack to your heart's content. The stock $PATH looks like

/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/X11/bin

which I redefine in my .bash_profile as

/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/X11/bin:/usr/local/share/python
⚠️ **GitHub.com Fallback** ⚠️